At the time of his death Mike Adams was a professor at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington - although not a very popular one with the administration. You will generally see him described in the media as "Controversial Professor Mike Adams", as if it's the subject he teaches: Mike Adams, Head of the Department of Controversy. It wasn't always so. A two-time "Faculty Member of the Year" winner at the turn of the century, Adams grew more "controversial" as the university got more "woke". He got a book deal with Regnery (publishers of America Alone), and was quoted favorably by Rush:
What American university wants a prof who's published by Regnery and getting raves on the Rush Limbaugh show? The Deputy Assistant Under-Deans of Diversity all frosted him out, and Adams spent seven years in a lawsuit with UNCW - which he won, but it's still seven years of your life you'll never get back.
Then came the Covid. He Tweeted energetically through the lockdown, including at his governor:
Massa Cooper, let my people go!
And on the education lockdown in particular:
Don't shut down the universities. Shut down the non-essential majors. Like Women's studies.
The latter is surely unexceptional as an opinion. The former is stronger meat, but likening lockdown states to plantations with the governor as massa would have been regarded as metaphorically viable at almost any other time in public discourse: As listeners to my serialization of Daniel Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year know well, London in 1665 did not attempt to quarantine the general population ...because they wouldn't have put up with it.
Nevertheless, the university administration felt obliged to rouse itself from its locked-down torpor and denounce the Tweets as "vile" and "expressions of hatred". The celebrated actor and comedian Orlando Jones called for him to be fired, as did almost three hundred of Adams' fellow professors. Two actresses from a TV show called "One Tree Hill" urged a boycott of UNCW unless it got rid of Adams. There was a "Fire Mike Adams" rock installed on campus. He was used to this kind of pressure: As the new millennium settled in, calls for his termination were like swallows returning to Capistrano in novel forms of transportation - first old-school pieces of paper signed by real people; then a Facebook group dedicated to his sacking; then multiple Change.org petitions...
It was all scheduled to come to an end on Friday with Adams' painfully negotiated departure and a $504,702.76 settlement. Half-a-mil sounds a lot, but it was to be paid out over five years, if the university stuck to it, and it's not really a lot, is it, for the obliteration of any trace of your presence at the school to which you devoted your entire teaching career.
On Thursday a neighbor called 911 because Mike Adams' car hadn't been moved for several days and there was no answer on the telephone. Inside police found the body of a 55-year-old man with, in cop lingo, a "gsw" - gunshot wound.
I was struck by these lines - an aside in a piece on Nick Sandmann:
[Mike Adams] wrote with verve and humor. He seemed like a happy warrior. He didn't cave at false charges, or wallow in synthetic guilt. Nor twist himself into pretzels, as timid 'conservatives' do, who are eager to placate the crocodiles by feeding them someone else.
He "seemed like" a happy warrior, but who knows? It's a miserable, unrelenting, stressful life, as the friends fall away and the colleagues, who were socially distant years before Covid, turn openly hostile. There are teachers who agree with Mike Adams at UNCW and other universities - not a lot, but some - and there are others who don't agree but retain a certain queasiness about the tightening bounds of acceptable opinion ...and they all keep their heads down. So the burthen borne by a man with his head up, such as Adams, is a lonely one, and it can drag you down and the compensations (an invitation to discuss your latest TownHall column on the radio or cable news) are very fleeting.
The American academy is bonkers and has reared monsters - so that we now have a "black liberation movement" staffed almost entirely by college-educated white women (including a remarkable number of angry trans-women) from the over-undergraduated permanent-varsity Class of Whenever. We are assured that out in "the real world" there is a soi-disant "silent majority" whose voices will resound around the world on November 3rd. For what it's worth, I don't believe in the existence of this "silent majority", and a political party that has won the popular vote only once in the last thirty years (2004) ought to be chary about over-investing in it.
But either way, if you're doing the heavy lifting on an otherwise abandoned front of the culture war, what you mostly hear, as Mike Adams did, is the silent majority's silence - month in, month out.
Andrew Sullivan, the man who did more than anyone to overturn the millennia-old definition of marriage, discovered nevertheless that he was insufficiently woke for his colleagues at New York magazine, and so got canceled. Bari Weiss, a bisexual Jewess, found that the former did not compensate for the latter at a New York Times whose young staffers are openly sneering of Jews, and so she self-canceled. Barbara Kay at my old home The National Post has just done something similar, exhausted by the battle to say things that offend against the insipid yet totalitarian pieties. Newspapers have turned into colleges. Boardrooms have turned into colleges. Graceless corporate pseudo-macho American sports have turned into colleges.
Pushing back can be initially exhilarating - and then just awfully wearing and soul-crushing: "I'm with you one hundred per cent, of course. But please don't mention I said so..." "Oh, we had a lovely time at the Smiths'. Surprised not to see you there..." It is possible, I suppose, that Mike Adams was the victim of a homicide rather than the ultimate self-cancelation: Certainly there are plenty on Twitter and Facebook who would like to kill him, or at least cheer on any chap who would. As I write, the first comment under that YouTube video above is from a fellow called Don P:
Mike Adams is with Satan, and Rush will be joining him soon.
And yet, if the facts are as they appear, a tireless and apparently "happy warrior" - exhausted by a decade of litigation, threats, boycotts, ostracization and more - found himself sitting alone - and all he heard in the deafening silence of the "silent majority" was his own isolation and despair. A terrible end for a brave man. Rest in peace.
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Re: The Silent Majority and the deafening silence thereof. Time to change the label to The Outraged Shouting Majority. We need to be heard.
It is better to light a candle AND curse the darkness.
It's better still to obliterate Marxists and their works. It's either that or lay down and take it
This obviously hits home.
I'm here because, while I have had increasing disagreements with Steyn over the years (in particular I regard Islamism as a far weaker long term threat than the cultural left, while he clearly thinks the opposite) he's out there fighting some fights that I want to see fought. Paying my club dues is the least I can do to put my money where my mouth is.
I work for a major corporation that has gone full on woke panic since the George Floyd business. I'd like to push back, but am not confident in my ability to do so in an effective way, because I couldn't sell water in the Sahara desert. As things get to the point of having "WHITE FRAGILITY" shoved in my face on the company homepage, it's feeling like a decision between dying on my feet or living on my knees.
Anyway, my suggestion is that one of the valued club members had a regular feature highlighting people like Mile Adams - people we really should be supporting - and above all giving concrete suggestions on how to do this. Somewhere we can contribute, etc. For instance, is there a good pro-police charity that I can donate to?
Existential threats have different velocities and those velocities can change in a heartbeat. I've been following China for years but I was surprised by ChiCom-19 and that 95% of our antibiotics were revealed to come from there. We knew all about Occupy Wall Street and Antifa has been rioting in Portland for years, but the complete unwillingness to contain them is new. Islam is slow and steady and more advanced in Europe but it remains a threat. Maybe not just only one threat gets to be the civilization killer. Maybe it has to be a group effort, but things are happening fast right now.
As to a suggestion for a pro-police charity, I don't think you could do much better than the National Rifle Association.
Thank you, Mark, for remembering Mike Adams. I admired him for his courage and think he was an honorable man. I am saddened by the loss of such a fine person. I was pleased to see that Tucker Carlson also remembered Mike.
Another thing to keep in mind is that in corporate America, many of the Woke are going Broke. It's okay for Starbucks or Ben & Jerry's to be Woke but it didn't seem to work for others, drifting in seas of red ink that they can't blame on COVID-19..
I have grave doubts that Darwinism explains everything we need to know about the history of life. But it definitely explains a lot about the fate of corporations. Those who lose touch with the broad middle of their market will be overtaken and their assets will be gobbled by by those who stay in touch. If not, the world has changed indeed.
A terrible end. But there are thousands of us doing the same without tenure gained through self-admitted deception and deflection. I'd rather stock shelves in Kroger than fudge a decade of intellectual work and teaching to get tenure. In my quite wide experience, it constitutionally ruins everyone who makes this compromise.
Is it loneliness or the realization that despite all your efforts, you're still next in line for the bus-tire facial?
I've had many disagreements with Mike viz his reflexive and well-remunerated anti-police stances and his self-promoted pandering to an "inspirational" rapist-murderer he visited in prison while refusing offers to visit the man's victims to see if he could gain anything from their suffering.
He always refused to contemplate the difference between lunatic campus feminist politics and what happens to real crime victims in real courtrooms. These are serious political, professional, and intellectual failings for anyone promoting themselves as a conservative expert in criminology. We need to stop letting leftitarians take up all the intellectual air and pretend it isn't even more corrosive to endorse them than fighting a fight based in honesty.
Especially toxic in the current climate of virulent anti-police and anti-incarceration violence. Police and crime victims are people too.
We're at the ramparts. Nobody can keep trying to have it it both ways. Rest in peace.
Upon re-reading this, I regret it. I had a decade-long conflict with Mike and several other law and criminology professors who purport to be conservatives but subscribe to the libertarian, anti-law enforcement bent, one that that has obviously been forefront in my mind in recent days. But he was a man in pain. And so this was not the time nor place to comment so.
Actually, Tina, I read your first comments while ago and admit to being slightly puzzled. Despite your second comment, would you care to elaborate?
Thanks in advance!
Please keeping in mind his tragedy, Adams was among many academicians who admitted, either personally to me or in their writing, that they hid their real political views -- either intentionally from jump or concealed views as they evolved -- until they gained tenure, at which point and only at which point they "came out" as some form of conservative -- usually the acceptably mushy libertarian type, ie. weeping big fat tears for a child rapist for each time they quoted Hayek...though their beat-downs of campus feminists is still an intramural I'd subscribe to on cable.
But in choosing this path, such erstwhile tenured tokens actively aided in cementing the monoculture of academia today, which may be fairly characterized as accelerationist fascism of the Filippo Tommaso Marinetti mode, only with even less humor, art, language skills, or other cultural frosting that hardly kept the first iteration from being an entire merde-show.
Adams' speciality was criminal law, yet he incontinently conflated what was happening to him at the hands of a bunch of whiny activists with what was happening in the real justice system to real victims of crimes. That position is intellectually indefensible and grotesquely demeans the real experiences of crime victims seeking justice in a system that still convicts fewer than 5% of stranger, serial rapists and imprisons fewer than 5% of convicted child molesters.
His unwillingness to differentiate between, say, the Duke scandal and what was happening to child victims in courthouses in his own city betrayed willful disinterest in academic rigor. Such intellectual laziness is grimly common among people who hide their real political views until they grab the ring of tenure and start dining out at 10K per speech on the "conservative academic" circuit -- the subject alway being themselves.
The point is, it does nothing to actually challenge the current status quo. It's court jester stuff.
I once had a tenured professor whose name would be recognized by most here send me an anonymous note asking me, a graduate student targeted for immanent ideological expulsion, to out certain hiring documents from a confidential faculty search in which they were more than egregiously excluding all straight white applicants. You might see him on Fox News, still a tenured prof shilling "conservative" wares. What won't change academia? A passel of tenured talking heads coloring inside the lines to cash their checks.
Hi Tina,
Suicide is the solution when you decide that your life of intolerable misery cannot improve.
The least we can do for Mike Adams is to learn a lesson from his pain and the end he chose.
I of course have no knowledge of what else was going on in his life, but you cannot, as he did; run with the hare and hunt with the hounds, without the contradictions taking their toll.
Since I've known you I have worried about you like this. I spend way too much time there too.
Please be kind and gentle to yourself. You are an international treasure who I look to everyday!
I sometimes only find solace in the sermons of my favorite angry preacher, Martin Luther. His situation and ours are remarkably similar.
I love you, Mark. Keep up the good work.
Mark writes, "We are assured that out in "the real world" there is a soi-disant "silent majority" whose voices will resound around the world on November 3rd. For what it's worth, I don't believe in the existence of this "silent majority", and a political party that has won the popular vote only once in the last thirty years (2004) ought to be chary about over-investing in it."
People have various reasons for staying silent. If not joining Mike Adams is one of them, we need to be cautious how we interpret their silence.
Fortunately, there are ways we can tell. Here are two:
- Will the mayors who let their cities burn and their citizens' homes and businesses be trashed, with some citizens killed, be re-elected? If not, take heart; if so, take cover.
- Barbara Kay pointed out in her farewell column that indie media are booming (Mark's site is but one example). I am forced by law to fund the progressive Canadian Broadcasting Corporation but I pay to be part of Mark's site. The boom in indie media is a boom in people willing to pay for real information. In my view, that makes the boom all the more significant.
If the next government in the United States is a progressive one, the cacophony from the Big Media who are Joe Biden's courtiers (whom he may try to fund) will likely lead to more, not less, interest in indie media (along with government persecution, but that sort of makes the point).
- Some information sources may be canceling themselves. For example, news stories like "looting, arson, murder follow mostly peaceful demonstration" upend centuries of news tradition (accentuate the sensational) in the service of covering for people who would assault the reader at the drop of a hat. Readers who are not bound and determined to believe whatever they want to believe will begin to see that. Those media will need the government subsidies that indies can do without but they may not retain the attention.
- We don't know how many African Americans really identify with a Black Lives Matter movement that is - to judge from the photo ops - dominated by white people.
The really important statement any citizen can make is at the polls, and it's also - usually - the safest. So I would wait to be sure what the landscape in the US will look like in December.
"Don't vote, it just encourages them," as an old Black anarchist used to say.
I'm not convinced of the efficacy of voting. Look at Doug Ford in Ontario. "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
Granted, but what if each individual sellout political hack knows she will only have one term? That damage one can at least inflict. Also, no one stops us from putting up better candidates.
Note: Many of us had many reservations about Doug Ford, and were proved correct. But the alternative would have been worse. And, as for anarchy, it is is bad for our health.
Seen on the internet: David Burge
@iowahawkblog
Out: The United States of America
In: The State University of America
Several prior commenters have said they were previously unfamiliar with Mike Adams. Thus I'll provide titles for a few of his memorable columns at TownHall -- ones I'd liked enough to save on my hard drive -- so such folks can experience a sample of his writings:
- "Read Your Damned Syllabus!"
- "Get Out of My Class and Leave America"
- "Studies Majors: Higher Education's New Special Ed"
- "The Bullied Gene"
I hadn't heard of Mike Adams either, but it sounds like I should have.
I can barely believe that we've regressed to prophet-killing like in the Old Testament. The end result is clear: ignore the prophets and risk Divine Wrath. I suppose that's what comes from removing prayer from schools (real prayer, not that fraudulent Salat ). The joke is on us, though. We'll be forced to endure the nasty end of Western Civilization because we can't abide some harsh criticism from Mike Adams.
Thank you for the titles.
Appreciate it, Paul! This professor should be sainted!
I got caught up on marriage and forgot the joy and laughter Mike used to bring me. I spent a full decade, from 1968 to 1978 almost entirely with the Feminists, straight and gay. One of my sins was to use my position as Professor of English at a Methodist college in Iowa to start a Women's Studies program. Feminist criticism, like Deconstruction, New Historicism, etc. are all Marxist based. Marxists are Destructors.
Wokeness has ruined the dreams of being an educator in general all because his views didn't reflect their "new normal". Mike is one of the many whose dreams have been ripped away from them by wokeness and the cancel culture. I guarantee you Mark, many conservative teachers and professors could live with being criticized by their bosses who run the show, but when your students even view you as "problematic", that's when the dream dies.
I discovered Mike Adams years ago and, as a retired profess of British Lit, I do mourn his death. The function of marriage, in fact the number one reason for its existence is the birth and nurturing of the next generation. Classical Tragedy expose our vulnerability to outside forces, while Comedy celebrates the 'Life Force,' with the two main plots, Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, or lovers kept apart by external forces, finally brought together. Both plots ends in marriage and the linking of two families. That is why the bride's family sits on one side, the groom's on the other and the two families responsible for making the marriage work.
I'm going to lift my boycott of the comment section, assuming that "they" let me. I'm doing this because I see that at least some on here are starting to get it -- we need to DO things. Not just talk, not just commenting on here, but actual action in the real world.
For those who don't know (or care), I began my boycott after I posted about using boycotts and crowd funding and got zero responses. Frankly, that disgusted me. Now don't get me wrong, I still love the MSC and come here every day. But I feel that we have to do something more.
People, we are losing our way of life at a breathtaking pace. While running wild, the left faces little real push back from us. There are millions of "us" and I think we need to use boycotts and crowd funding, among other tactics, to fight back against these lunatics.
Imagine if Rush, Tucker, and Mark urged a boycott of Company X. You think that company wouldn't take notice? I'm sorry, Allison, but I don't think Steyn Reading clubs would accomplish anything. And Brian W., love you man, but please God, no Gilbert and Sullivan patter. No "Teddy Bears' Picnic", no more of that stuff. I see so many of you say how you were depressed or angry and then you came here and got cheered up. Well, I'm sorry, but there's no reason to feel cheered up. I have friends who say they don't watch the news because it just agitates them. To which I say, "You should be agitated! You should be madder than Hell and doing something about it."
That's my two cents worth.
I take no offense, and I agree it is not enough. As I said, I went to my state reopen protest. I have run orgs, begun orgs. I continue to speak. I attended Easter mass in another state in defiance of my gov. But I cannot boycott what I already don't buy. I do not have time to ignore my kids and attend shareholder meetings and demand they divest from China or protect the civil rights of their employees to speak the way the Left uses Trustafarians to do so. Each must act according has his station, and maybe mine is just to end up in the gulag because I hold to Live Not By Lies.
I'm glad you didn't take offense, Allison, as I certainly meant none. In fact, you've probably done more as an individual than I have. But I'm not talking about individual action, I'm talking about group action. I don't know how many people are in the Steyn Club, but I know that Rush claims over 20 million listeners and Tucker is the top rated show on cable news. If even a couple of million people threaten a boycott, CEOs will listen.
I think this comes hard to conservatives. While the Left tend to be collectivists, we tend to be individualists. However, I think we're at that point that Franklin referred to many years ago: "We must all hang together, or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately." We are hanging separately now. Mike Adams was hung separately. This must stop!
Thanks, Steven. As my Canadian colleague Kate McMillan always says, "Not showing up to riot is a failed conservative strategy."
People who do not care to be "agitated," who merely want to be "entertained," are, as I noted in a previous comment, akin to kittens playing with balls of yarn. Now, one needs balance, but non-stop amusement is not the answer, and neither is the deceptive feeling of "doing something" which some people generate within themselves by commenting, "Somebody needs to do something!!" however many exclamation marks one adds to that sentence.
I disagree somewhat, in that part of the purpose of the reading clubs etc, as well as all the cultural content on this site, is to remind us of what precisely we are trying to "conserve." Think of the Monuments Men of WWII.
Five years ago, at a different website, I asked "What would 'winning' look like?" It's a long story but the question is still relevant. In those days, the "cool" kids like Gavin McInnes and Milo were "winning," or thought they were. Where are they now? And is their definition of "winning" and "being cool now" something we want(ed) to cultivate? Etc etc.
I don't pretend to have all the answers but we need the "Stevens" of the world to question each other, to challenge cliches, to try to elevate the discourse and nudge people out of their comfort zones on OUR sides, not just grouse at our opponents.
We can do both, Steven. We can actively do something by speaking to everyone we meet about what is going on and we can find enjoyment which is getting harder and harder to find in this second round of Covid regional, spike-triggered shutdowns.
It's oppressive out here but it doesn't mean I'm going to curl up in a cocoon and take it. I'm going to try to live my life. I continue to think about my next visits to see elderly family and friends when they are allowed visitors in their nursing homes, my grandchildren, too, as it will be one year this December since being together before we can safely take the short flight; when shopping I put back on the shelf any item with a made in China sticker; I avoid Nike and wear old footwear or made other than in China. I read labels on the seafood and other Asian products and read which countries exported them. I'm tuned into the destructive forces within our major cities and universities. I'm tending to what I have control over and trying to read more.
I'll vote for the person who is least likely to infringe on my ability to enjoy life what little is left of it. I agree with what you're proposing mostly but I'm probably not going to take on the violent mob in person. If they approach me intending to harm me, they need to recall their loved ones in a hurry. In other words, I'm not putting up with this if it hits close to home. I'll support law enforcement to the bitter end of time and promote all that is still good about America. Good to see you break out and comment. I was losing heart with you in absentia.
I'm encouraged by all the fresh members I see commenting. It's a very good sign. I'm getting worn out by the seeing the country torn apart by the nihilistic evil doers. It would be easy to sit around and cry half the day but I'm getting old and have to focus on preserving my sanity. Mike Adams maybe didn't know we we're all out here like him, trying to hang on, too.
I have already stopped buying things made and sold by companies I disagree with politically. I don't know if that is having any effect on those companies.
It is very difficult for businesses to protect themselves from idiots with nothing to lose. They have been paying-off for awhile to keep business going. But I think major companies in Minneapolis have finally figured out that they can no longer afford to pay this scam. The idiots running the city may finally be getting the hint. They seem to be backing away from defunding the police. A change to the city charter to defund the police is being planned for the next election. By making it unworkable it will be voted down. Then city leaders can blame the citizens for the defeat. The Democrats have made their bed and are now lying in it.
I have heard you can, "fight fire with fire", and I believe you can, "fight stupid with stupid". Try coming up with left wing ideas that will bite them in the ass.
Currently Social Security tax is only levied on the first $137,700 of income. Suggest that a "reparation tax " of 5% be added on the amount of income earned after the Social Security max has been reached.
Minneapolis is forcing people out of cars and onto bikes or public transit. I am pushing for politicians to lose the auto allowance and replace it with a transit pass. I say, ."Put their butts on the bus".
The Met Council is pushing light rail. The newest Line goes from Minneapolis is out to the Southwest suburbs. The Democrats want a more compact and dense city. If that was actually the case why not build shorter lines in the core city for the same money? To me it looks like it is designed to move people from the poor areas of Minneapolis to work in the wealth suburbs. The Democrats do not want poor people to have cars. It is too hard to control poor peoples movements if they have cars. I call the newest line "The Democrats little train to apartheid".
If you want to really change a boomers mind, ask what the deficits and New Green Deal inflation will do to their retirement. If they work for the government ask what they will do if their pension is cut? They will tell you that can't happen. Ask them why it can't happen? Cities, counties, and states may soon be filing for bankruptcy. What then, we are screwed. Ask who benefiting from illegal immigration and how much it costs the taxpayer. If they finally comprehend the look on their face is priceless.
"You should be agitated! You should be madder than Hell and doing something about it."
Steven,
Up until 15 years ago, I was an atheist. What brought me back? It was not a clever argument, nor some grand realization, nor a threat to my lifestyle, nor anything of that nature. I merely challenged God to reveal himself, and He did.
When it comes to boycotts, threats, and the like, forget it. You can't beat the Devil at his own game.
Ok. I'll boycott Facebook, Google and Twitter.
I guess I'll address you, Kathy, although my comment is for pretty much everyone who responded to me. Those responses seem to be based on the thought that I'm challenging people to take individual action. That is not what I'm saying, not at all. I'm urging group action. Was that not clear?
As for you, Kathy, thanks so much for the kind words. It's nice to be needed. I will paraphrase someone I think you know -- Lt. Tawny Madison: Look, I have one job to do in this lousy club. It's stupid, but I'm gonna do it! Okay?
I generally prefer "buycotts". Half the time, the thing I am supposed to boycott is something I never would have bought anyway. Though I did, without fanfare, permanently ditch Gillette after their ridiculous ad campaign.
A fascinating and illuminating discussion. With due respect, Steven, I was directing my remarks to Mark. Having first "discovered" him as a charter subscriber to Canada's National Post, my wife and I care deeply for his own well being. He carries a heavy burden.
I believe I understand your visceral anger, not dissimilar to what I observed as a long time small-town high school principal the first time our students reacted to a peer's suicide. Ultimately, if it was suicide, that was the choice of Professor Adams. I grieve for him no less.
I was trying to convey my personal sense of the untimely loss of a good man, and my hope that our host would take succor from a couple of masters of the English language. I spent my professional life working among Marxists and "progressives" who didn't realize the implications of what they espoused. What a grim crew they are!
I'm open to consideration of boycotts and some of the other strategies employed by the left. In my eighth decade, I'm probably not up for some of the more, as ABC puts it, intense varieties of protest, but I'm trying to draw my own personal line between perpetual rage and apathy.
Some of us have fought our own battles over the decades, and the best we can do at this point is to support others onward. In the meantime, I don't want to be the sort of fellow that P.G. Wodehouse describes: "He had the look of one who had drunk the cup of life and found a dead beetle at the bottom."
I also dumped Gillette in favor of Harry's because of their ad campaign.
I enjoyed reading Mike's columns, though I did so infrequently. He will definitely be missed.
Thank you so much for your lovely column on Mike Adams, Mark. Those words gave me courage to write here for the first time. Dr. Adams was a hero of mine; he was another southerner who became disgusted with and also ditched the toxic Democratic party. About 18 years ago I was fortunate enough to meet him in person at a NC Republican Women's Club meeting in New Bern--maybe I was one of the reasons he was there as my best friend was president of the club at the time, and I'm sure I nagged her to get him to speak. Anyway he was amused that we were actually conservatives AND from Chapel Hill. (In 2020 there are even fewer of us in Chapel HELL). Dr. Adams was brilliant that day--also witty, charming and hilarious. I wasn't the only woman in that crowd that had an "Old Lady Crush" on him. What a loss we have suffered. It is heartbreaking what he endured for so many years. Truly I pray that he has found peace with a merciful God.
What is galling to me is that his tweet (calling Roy Cooper "Massa") was factual. Our despotic catatonic governor IS the scion of a slave-holding family. Mike Adams was only stating what is easily found on Ancestry.com I just looked it up myself before penning this letter. It is ironic that Roy is "owned" lock stock and barrel by Tom Steyer and George Soros. In 2016 many people were shocked that Roy became governor. The illegals working on our house renovation told our contractor that many buses came from Virginia to vote for Roy! I know this is anecdotal but I believe it.
Dear Allison, you are not a Nobody! You are here with us--what a precious gift the Mark Steyn Club is for us. And you are my hero for protesting at ReopenNC as well! God bless you for that. If I weren't a 72 year old stroke survivor with mobility problems I would have been there too. You are doing all the right things (home-schooling, contributing to your community) . Being a conservative! And you communicated with Dr. Adams--I hope he knows somehow that he affected so many many people during his too short life. He had a positive influence on untold lives --that is a wonderful legacy. We will miss him.
What would I do without this club? My life would be a lot more frustrating and very much sadder. It was a brilliant idea Mark.
God bless Dr. Adams and God bless the USA
PS Sorry about the rambling--it's what I do best.
Writing in public for the first time is an excellent first step, Judy. Kudos.
I love your rambling! Please don't apologize. I rant. My kids complain that I rant like my natural father. Rambling is undoubtedly more acceptable than ranting. (actually, I ramble too. please keep rambling. we can start a Ramblers of America club and ramble on together).
One more comment: I know we are far and few between, across all time zones ans continents, and some of us can't meet in person due to the bastards' mandates or actual health concerns, but maybe we should try. Several of the community took the bold step of using our own names and being willing to incur wrath for what we say. So we aren't hiding. Maybe we could start local Steyn Reading clubs now for when we have to distribute his work by secret. And no, I'm no longer joking. I'd be happy to have any other NCers reach out to me.
How wonderful. Good for you! Hope people in NC will contact you.
You want to go to court after reading about Mark's experiences in the DC legal system? :-) Anyway, some sources to investigate would be the Christian Legal Society, the Institute for Justice and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. Good luck!
I know all about FIRE and CLS, but none HERE and no one acted HERE with any urgency. 15 suits have been filed gainst our governor for lack of press access, and you can't even hear about that from the ones suing! if ADF is fighting here, I can't tell. Ask the conservative inc. in town and the response is "There's that standing issue, and gee, this virus does make people sick, and why don't you just wear your mask?"
Gotcha - I was thinking they might be able to point you to a local attorney you could consult. Good luck - keep the faith!
Fantastic, Allison. There is more power in numbers. Me and Kathy know most of the conservatives around our parts and we held in person gatherings of various kinds pre-March 2020.
I live outside of Boston. If Mark had a way for us to pm each other I would give you my address and we could correspond the old fashioned way, the way that cancel culture can't get at and respond to easily.
I have been familiar with Mike Adams for as long as he has been in the public eye through his writings and commentary. Rest in Peace with God Mike!
As to the 'Silent Majority' the key word is 'Silent'. We live our our values every day...silently. We vote our values secretly every other year...silently. And every day I pray, silently, that enough right thinking people, in the right locations, vote the right way so that we keep the 'Majority' long enough to weather this lunacy currently plaguing our beloved USA!
I live in NC, and attended the ReopenNC protest in Raleigh, back when protests were still evil. I went carrying a sign "Everyone is Essential". Only 1 person running for office was there (Mark Robinson, R for Lt Gov), no current politicians. After I left that day, Prof. Adams spoke to the crowd. I emailed him after to thank him for all he had done, and to ask for help finding legal counsel to fight the count's mandate depriving me of my right to religious expression. He wasn't able to point me to anyone in NC to help. I was disappointed by that. Now I see it might have been even more disheartening for him.
We are all so tired. Few of us have a platform where anyone listens to us, and so we look to the Mike Adams and Mark Steyns to keep going.
I'm a nobody, and I come Pre-Cancelled. I realized after 2001 that my being pro free speech and anti communist meant I'd never complete a PhD in the sciences because I couldn't stand my colleagues. I quit and in a few years was a happy Catholic SAHM--even more a nobody.Even in my town, it was hopeless. I couldn't even deal with the local community drop in daycare, to which I'd been elected president, because the rest of the board were all roundabout promoting, bike path building, forced-composting fascists. Once I opened my mouth, poof, I didn't exist. Later I founded an org to help math teachers learn math. Over and over I worked with teachers who believed that conservatives hated children and who had nothing but lunatic ideas about education and the reasons for the 'gap'. For years I tried, but they preferred ignorance than admit I was human. I've been banned from Twitter for typing "I stand with Meghan Murphy. Yaniv is not a woman." I can fight, but where, and with whom? Like I said, it's not that I have so much to lose; it's that I come pre-cancelled.
I understand the misery and the wanting to give up. I get up every morning because God saved my life long ago, and gave me my husband and kids. Without that, I don't know.
So now I homeschool my kids. (I'd homeschool anyone else's who needs help, too.) I encourage my kids to find a path out of lthe States and maybe to Mars, where I hope competence will count more than remembering to not misgender someone.
Mark, I am a member of Steyn Online because I worried in 2017 about your own despair. I am sure I am not alone. We would do more than comment and buy books and be members. I expect we will lose, but I am proud to go down fighting with you and the folks here.
You're not a nobody. Thanks for helping math teachers teach math. It's one of the few truths most people can still agree on.
Allison: I just plunked down $160 and joined the Club to respond to this. No, you are not alone. "I can fight, but where, and with whom?" That's the question, isn't it. One possible answer: with like-minded people, for a start. I'm not in NC--Alabama. Still, with a name like mine, I'm pretty easy to find. Please feel free to get in touch. I drive through NC on my way to visit family (what's left of it) in Massachusetts. Perhaps we can get a committee of correspondence going.
Thank you Allison. I have some of the same frustrations. I want to do more than comment and buy books and be a member. I am so thankful to writers like Mark Steyn who carry the torch! If I am tired, I can't imagine how exhausted they must be. Let's continue to support and encourage each other in this on-line community.
And to Mark, we value your leadership, your skill, your wit and your ability to say what we are thinking! We need your voice now more than ever.
Oh, I'm sorry to disabuse of that notion. Math, which even Stalin left alone, has been corrupted by the Woke. And while I'm busy saying things that get one cancelled, let me say this: the opening of higher ed and intellectual professions to women since the 60s has left, shall we say, a hole in the intellectual heft of the traditional nurturing professions of teaching and nursing.
Do you know about James Lindsay's work? He and Helen Pluckrose have been writing about the academic depth of the Critical Race Theory and its tentacles in everything, no longer just in academia. But he has catalogues the downfall of math as an academic discipline.
His blog newdiscourses.com has wonderful articles to explain the abuse of language the Woke uses, the cult qualities of wokeism and more.
Welcome and I hope you all do meet.
I live in Massachusetts. If you all come up here I hope you'll let me know. I'm in the process of getting my house ready to sell, and I'm strongly considering moving to New Hampshire, but I'd journey back here if the governor allows to take you all out to dinner and talk about saving this great nation and western civilization. Conservatives, patriots who love America, need to keep connected with each other in ways that don't allow google, facebook twit-ter and other leftist minders to keep tabs on us.
Sad story, well told.
Members should read John Zmirak's devastating column on Mike's passing. I can well understand why, if he did take his own life. Zmirak's condemnation of how even our conservative media initially covered the Nick Sandmann travesty or how quickly republicans destroyed Rep. Steve King with the help of the NYT is telling not so much as recent history but as foretelling of where this is heading. For me chick-fil-a became the canary in the coal mine when they denounced their Christian supporters and donated and apologized to the SPLC. Virtually every corporation in America and every major sports organization is doing the same, funneling massive amounts of money into BLM. What these companies are doing is of course morally reprehensible in buying protection from the Marxist mob but their view of the near future seems sound to me.
It will be interesting to see for how much longer this riot insurance racket lasts given that the protection they pay for often ends up being no protection at all.
By the time the corporations figure out they didn't get the protection they bargained for (they sold the rope with which they will be hanged), it will be long past too late.
It's hard to find any joy in the Mike Adams story but I put on a grim smile when I read, "The celebrated actor and comedian Orlando Jones called for him to be fired, as did almost three hundred of Adams' fellow professors. Two actresses from a TV show called "One Tree Hill" urged a boycott of UNCW unless it got rid of Adams." What would a boycott look like for, at best, a fourth-rate institution? UNCW only has an "arts and sciences" college along with their business school. The A&S college includes film studies, history, sociology (and criminal studies,) theater and other such departments along with "pre-engineering" and some pale STEM content. I wonder how evaluations go at the dean's office? I wouldn't be expecting any Linus Pauling's matriculating from the place.
I can imagine the faculty meeting where the threatened boycotts came up. "Ooo, a college dropout and two unknown (at least to me) actresses (who undoubtedly refer to themselves as actors) are unhappy! That's sooo hateful (especially to the Womyn's Studies faculty!)" At least we learned they have 300 warm bodies (at least half adjuncts) to cover their mail order and on-line classes at the diploma mill. The word administrator does not derive from the word, leader.
As to his half-million payout, that's probably the gross and you have to deduct legal fees. Mark would know how big those can be but it doesn't take a lot of imagination to believe that Mike Adams was a net loser on the deal. UNCW may have even threatened Mike Adams with being required to attend faculty meetings if he wanted more money in the settlement.
I will miss his writing. RIP
Cancel culture has been with us a long time, prob started in academia, the university, Mr Adam's has - had been pushing against this behemoth of indulgent misguided ignorance for some time I try ink. I recall being told, as an outgoing grad student (mid 90's) that every undergrad "at risk" should receive an "A" as anything else would mean retaliation by the student and the univ dept would not support much less even listen to your reason for the grading. I never followed that advice and prob 85% of my students have been at risk, and never more so than during the abysmal economic Obama years - but - I have also known I would need to fly under the radar, avoid tenure track, univ positions, etc, as my one student said to me after a tense kerfuffle with a dept head "Are you here for us or the dean?" Sometimes you need a reminder. I remained and found a way around the new restrictions (I was taking my classes on "too many class trips"). For Mr Adam's the isolation of lockdown must have made the last decade or more just that much more intense, like a nightmare one can't shake, for that I truly pray he has found peace. Fine and touching words Mr Steyn.
A very sombre start to the day, may he rest in piece.
I am just wondering for my American friends - just which hill are you going to die on? I mean, the Republican party has given away so much ground in the last half century, it is just breathtaking. When are you going to realise that what the left has in store for you is not a traditional gulag/re-education/elimination camp but your own home, where you have no economic opportunities, no job prospects, no social opportunities, no voice, maybe a gun or two, sitting in the dark. This is what Mike was facing after they destroyed him. You have to give the left credit, they have been hard at work, busy busy busy every day chipping way until finally, when people look around and wonder how it all went wrong - the task to reverse this decay is maybe another centuries work at least? A thankless, grinding, uphill battle of never-ending threats, setbacks and on and on. I am not saying you can't do it but when are you going to start? I see people being critical of Trump for not being the "right guy" for this fight and it is time for him to go so you can find the "right person" for this monumental task. I bet everything I have that back in the day, there were a lot of people who probably though that George Washington wasn't the "right guy" either. I am sorry if this sounds offensive but from where I am sitting, it looks like you have lost and that makes me despair.
Where are you sitting? I'm always curious to know what vantage point people are observing my country from.
Back during the dark ages of the Roman Empire when the majority of Romans seemed to be wallowing in hedonism and the small population of Christians were new to the world and being persecuted there was hope. Christianity rose from the ashes of the fall of Rome and helped consolidate western civilization under a core set of ideals and values. Conflicts may have arisen among Christians and people may have been cruel to each other at times, but that's the human condition. There is no paradise on earth. Still, it was Judeo- Christian values that lead to the end to slavery, it was Judeo-Christian values that determined the laws that we base our legal system on. If people in America were confident of the values and the culture that made our country great leftists and their proxies would have no power in the public square.
Otherwise, I'm afraid society will break down to the point where the people who draw their guns fastest will be in charge.
It's like he's a martyr for the faith in a way. It's like he was imprisoned by the left until it killed him. I'm embarrassed to say that I never knew who he was until now. God bless his soul. I wish I had known of him and had his address. I would have loved to correspond with him. I send a lot of snail mail to people. It's so nice to get something in the mail that isn't a bill or a solicitation for money or junk mail. A card or a letter in the mail brings you out of the twisted online world back into the world of reality where people know each other face to face instead of "through a mirror darkly."
God bless him with peace, Amen.
"I send a lot of snail mail to people. It's so nice to get something in the mail that isn't a bill or a solicitation for money or junk mail. A card or a letter in the mail brings you out of the twisted online world back into the world of reality where people know each other face to face ..."
A very interesting comment, KB. Thanks for what amounts to quite a good suggestion.
I wasn't familiar with Mike Adams story either Kitty. No matter whether he took his own life or not the left killed this man. Fox News just a few weeks ago 'canceled' one of it's frequent guests over a supposedly objectionable statement he had made years ago joining in with the mob in destroying anyone who crosses a line. This 'line' is constantly updated of course according to the whim of the PC thought police so perhaps Mr. Adams once upon a time said something too politically incorrect for Fox. Whatever the reason they never covered Mike Adams sad story so shame on Fox News.
Yes, shame on Fox. I find myself wishing any honest commentator kicked off of Fox or any other place for telling the truth should get picked up by One America News Network. Even if they had to take a significant pay cut it would be worth bringing their name recognition to a conservative network and bringing in more viewers.
Stick it to the cabal on the left and leave them standing alone with their ball in the field.
Mark, I am not usually one to question any suicide, knowing that we never know what is in another's heart. Still, I find it almost impossible to believe Mike Adams would kill himself. He seemed to have plans for the future that included a series of lectures/debates for the pro-life movement, of which he was a tremendous apologist. I hope the local police were friends with him, and that they will investigate closely. RIP
I agree Rick. He seemed cheerful enough in a recent public video,
I hope that his death isn't taken at face value, but that it is properly investigated.
My current employer, a super-major oil company, is busy turning itself into Oberlin College with hydrocarbons (except not for long as it pursues the chimera of "netZero by 2050).
It is all in on every woke piety, although strangely silent on the persecution of the Uyghurs (I suppose to shelter its shiny new research facility in Shanghai and other business interests whereby it is eagerly selling Xi Jinping the rope with which to hang the capitalist running dogs).
I was stunned at reading this (as I don't subscribe to the news in written form)--and deeply troubled/saddened as my conception of Mike Adams is extremely positive with his ineradicable wit in refuting the asininity within which we live in this day and age--how incredibly and depressingly sad to lose him, regardless of the method of his leaving this world--thank you for having made of him a light in woke darkness and for being the same yourself.
HSR
What a terrible tragedy. This must be happening to others too. Woke people are destroying the world. I'm sad.
Dealing as I am today with works and words of encouragement from Jon Haidt, Eric Weisman and Bill Jacobson, your thoughts on Mike Adams carry a mournful message but one of hope. Five corrosive years as a lonely sentinel will wear anyone down. But the voices in support are rising. Thx for adding your eloquent one.
Yes, such a sad story. Mark is, once again, pointing to the general decay of simple thought in America. Not only have we lost the skill of discourse, but so many have lost all perspective, and seem to embrace the simple denial of truth. We know such non-thought has invaded the colleges, but we are appalled when professors and university leaders seem to be in the lead rather than calling for sanity. Such a decay of thought and respect for truth is the real disease of America, and of the Western world. I have no suggestions, yet, except to thank Mark & his team for their diligence, and continue to join them as I can.
I worry about Mark. Jordan Peterson had a breakdown for several reasons, but one of the major ones was the number of people asking him for help. Quite the burden to bear when people are counting on you.
Here's a metaphor for how we reached this point: Imagine if Leftists vs Conservatives was a soccer match. The Leftists set out constant attacks while the entire strategy of the Conservatives is 11 men behind the ball with a team constructed with a goalie and 10 defenders who are told by their manager to under no circumstance cross into the opposing half. And to make it worse is that there is no going to penalties and play will continue until one team wins.
It's simple: Conservatives have decided they will do nothing but defend and refuse to attack. The absolute best case result is a draw which is why Conservatives accomplish absolutely nothing even when in power.
I have to admit guilt to being a cowardly member of that silent and alleged majority. The best I can do most times is to proudly acknowledge being a follower of Mark Steyn. I'm always quick to point out that I love the writings of Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams because it never hurts to point out that highly intelligent black men sometimes stray from the Leftist plantation. But between toiling away at my own job and my lack of confidence in being able to deliver a convincing retort under pressure to Leftist propaganda, I rarely push these issues in public conversation.
It can indeed be very depressing. The virus of leftism is spreading faster than Covid19. I can only pray for some clear path forward to allow classical liberalism to survive somewhere. But demography certainly seems to be dictating that survival is going to necessitate some sort of strategic retreat.
Your name is right here. You are certainly not a coward.
Yes, but I am in one of the few "safe spaces" for my my thought crimes, assuming of course Mark's membership is free of foxes in the hen house. Twitter, Facebook, et. al., are another matter.
I wonder why the person or persons who invited the male prostitute to campus to get down on all fours, put a sparkler up his rear end and sing the National Anthem haven't been ostracized and silenced?
Must be that the entire staff at that college are demented nut jobs. I can't think of any other explanation.
Imagine handing your kids over to that bunch.
"If you don't raise your children to be worthy of heaven what makes you think you're going there?"
St. Jean Marie Vianney
I wonder if you could publish part of Atlas Shrugged. It is eerie how so many things Ayn Rand predicted have come to pass including suicides of people who could take no more.
Not so much suicides (spoiler alert) as mysterious disappearances to Galt's Gulch. We all need to prepare a place but so far, outside the city limits of any metropolis will do. Look at any red/blue by-county political map and take heart. We're where all the food, water and guns are.
Actually, a sort of abridged version of Atlas Shrugged would be a real service. The bit about strong borders being essential for a libertarian society comes far too late in the story (page 850 out of 900 in my edition). I wonder how many people have actually got that far.
" I wonder how many people have actually got that far."
Robert,
I sure did, although it was a few years ago. "Atlas Shrugged" is one of those books that looks long, but seems short.
Have read it several times and always experienced the "looks long, but seems short" effect, or more precisely, don't care how long a book goes on if Im enjoying it and the story keeps moving. Other (but very different) long books I just can't resist coming back to: Lord of the Rings (sometimes over a few month after Silmarilion and Hobbit as a warm-up), Satanic Verses and a few of Joseph Conrad's longer & better ones.
One of the saddest stories.
Silent majority indeed. When will it be our turn to show our dissatisfaction to the people? Why should we have to wait till November to be heard? We know they won't like it so what's the matter? We can't prolong the inevitable if we believe Trump will be reelected. But we can't assume he will be and that's why we need our voices heard otherwise the silent majority will either end up like Mike Adams or like many who are murdered in liberal run cities where we just take it as commonplace in those areas.
Reading this introspective column made for a very sad start to my week. While I wasn't a regular reader of Mike Adams, I enjoyed his columns whenever I encountered them and admired him for the battles he cheerfully waged.
"...would have been regarded as metaphorically viable at almost any other time in public discourse..."
Yes, you unfortunately have particular expertise in that specific topic, Mark, as well as in the ongoing travails of Dr. Adams.
I would welcome some words from you before long on Wodehouse or your favorite Gilbert and Sullivan patter songs, or anything else you find brilliant and funny and silly. Please give it a thought. Stay well.
Rest in Peace, Professor Adams.
Oh, to be a Supreme Grandee Of Islam or a Chinese Communist tyrant. I'm thinking Islam and ChiComm Inc. are just sitting back waiting to fill the inevitable vacuum that is coming. Both can promise and deliver the end to the sewer of hate and evil that is ramping up around here and replace it with something they will advertise as a return to the old normal. But it will be another version of hate and evil. Think 1920's Nationalist Socialist movement in Germany. Who else can we turn to? Mitch McConnell? Sorry if I made you spit your coffee at your monitor.
Mark, thank you for, as usual, capturing and putting into words the sentiments this kind of event stirs in all of us.
Prof. Adams was so brave and the news of his passing was hard to hear.
R.I.P.
Unfortunately that creep Don P won't end up in Hell because even Satan has standards.
Well said, SabreMike Carroll.
Or he could have just been murdered. So many of the things that "couldn't happen here" are happening here, why shrink from contemplating that the one thing common to all tyrannies, governing by murder, is still unthinkable? I think about it all the time. Seth Rich was the first murder to break through my complacency; there have been many more, all the way to Jeffrey Epstein. In this case, half a million might not seem like that much by today's standards, but universities today are suddenly finding those half mils a little harder to lay their hands on. Killing a man who, by the standards of academia, doesn't deserve to live anyway, would be perfectly justified, especially as that money could be better spent on some social justice crusade.
For me, it is Andrew Breitbart, another conservative warrior.
I also wonder if it isn't time to retire the "happy warrior" appellation, which has become one of the highest compliments a conservative can aspire to, but a stance that not everyone may be able to maintain, or even want to.
It seems like an extra burden.
Kathy, when I read Wordsworth's "Character of the Happy Warrior," I realize he's writing about one who "Finds comfort in himself and in his cause." We can all aspire to that, even if we can't all be Lord Nelson, the subject of that poem.
That being said, I've just inveigled Mark in my own comment about this dreadful news to offer us some more literally "happy" thoughts about his favorite tidbits of Wodehouse or Gilbert & Sullivan or whomever. Leftists are such a grim and humorless crew that a cheerful attitude on our part can only infuriate them.
"Happy warrior" is the unrealistic, inhumane expectation by the many of the few. It's a placebo and actually quite pernicious.
Pushing back can be initially exhilarating - and then just awfully wearing and soul-crushing: "I'm with you one hundred per cent, of course. But please don't mention I said so..." "Oh, we had a lovely time at the Smiths'. Surprised not to see you there..." It is possible, I suppose, that Mike Adams was the victim of a homicide rather than the ultimate self-cancelation: Certainly there are plenty on Twitter and Facebook who would like to kill him, or at least cheer on any chap who would. As I write, the first comment under that YouTube video above is from a fellow called Don P:
Mike Adams is with Satan, and Rush will be joining him soon.
And yet, if the facts are as they appear, a tireless and apparently "happy warrior" - exhausted by a decade of litigation, threats, boycotts, ostracization and more - found himself sitting alone - and all he heard in the deafening silence of the "silent majority" was his own isolation and despair. A terrible end for a brave man. Rest in peace.
______________________
Dark with some truth.
I worry for us all
Please take care.
The news of his death did reach me yesterday, but this update leaves me stunned. So, so sad. Thank you for writing this Mark.
Thanks for your article, Mark. It's hard for anyone to stand so long against such an unrelenting, malevolent force.
Matt Taibbi, a journalist firmly in the camp residing left of center, recently published an article on his website called "The Left Is Now the Right." Take a look if you have a moment. The intolerant are coming for everyone--even themselves.
I know what Taibbi is saying, and good for him, but he's still wrong about one thing: "The Left is Now the Left But on Steroids" would be more accurate.
Agree, Kathy. I still admire him for standing up to all this bull. It's interesting to see that he had to publish the article on his own website, not one of the places like Rolling Stone where he has a platform. I think it's only a matter of time before he gets himself in trouble for pieces like this.
Mike Adams should have become "The Mark Steyn Endowed Chair of the Department of History at Hillsdale College."
I was greatly saddened when I read this news, and hoped it wasn't as I feared. Prof. Adams often wrote of his gun collection.
He was a first amendment warrior, in a different way than Mark, but equally tenacious. I will miss his wit and wisdom.
And I'll say a prayer for Rush and Mark to stay safe and healthy, too.
It's beyond disgusting how the "tolerant" left dances on the graves of anyone who dares step out of line. It's becoming easier to understand how Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc., got their power; it always seemed unthinkable to me, but with the fascistic left today, it's definitely thinkable....
R.I.P Professor Adams.
Very sad news.
Mark,
I was shocked to learn of Mike Adams' death last week. Another conservative voice silenced. In this case, by his own hand, but the driving force was the despair and isolation many of us feel. He put himself on the front line and showed more guts than most of us have, but became too abandoned at the end. I am nearing the end of my career voluntarily and I understand the impending feeling of loss, but I am 11 years older than Adams was, and I still feel it. I can not imagine the loss he felt for having it stripped of him for exercising free speech.
So what then must we do? Andrew Klavan is calling for influential and wealthy conservatives to found media and cultural outlets to try to retake the ground given up by Conservative, Inc. I do not have the resources. Rush might have, but is battling for his life. We need leaders, money men and idea men. We don't need crackpot or alt-right sites, and Fox news is losing its way, and will likely follow O'Sullivan's law after Rupert Murdoch passes.
How do you do it, Mark? How do you manage to continue your battles and not lose heart? You have interviewed in your show great thinkers including Klavan. We need more Happy Warriors (your old column at NR where I first got to enjoy you) and some way to support and succor those who have the guts and talent to speak out.
Where is our next WFB? The time may have passed to allow someone like him to go about debating any and all, without the threat of physical harm or cancellation of the event by craven and cowardly administrators. His magazine has tremendously suffered since his death. Who do we have with the brilliance and stature of such a man.
Mark, continue to fight the good fight. I and the others in the club are proud to support you. You are not alone, but you have the talent and the moxie to give better than you got. You are in the public eye. I know you understand our losses in the public square, far better than I. My livelihood was not in commentary. You might be in a position to lead or at least instigate rekindling of a conservative movement. I know you have suffered greatly at the hands of Dr. Fraudpants and CRTV skofflaws, but you know people and have an insightful and innovative mind.
Hail and Farewell, indeed, Dr. Adams. May angels speed thee to thy rest.
John Flamini
Nice comment, John. I feel compelled to add that no one saw sixty-three million votes for the "witless ape", either. I gently try to talk my lefty friends off the ledge by asking if they really think there are sixty-three million "fascists" or "racists" in America. Some do, but they are beyond help. To my friends on the right, I would ask if you really think the sixty-three million witless-ape voters are persuaded by the prospect of the Senescent Swamp Thing and anarchy in our cities? Whether they constitute a "silent majority", they—we—are out there. Silence may be golden, but it feels like fool's gold these days. As Foghorn Leghorn used to say, "Don't stand there gawkin' son, speak up!"
Mark, further to John's thoughtful comment, I also implore you to continue to fight the good fight. I think we in Australia are rather fortunate to have rather more 'happy warriors' - Rowan Dean, Andrew Bolt, Rita Panahi, Alan Jones, Janet Albrechtson and quite a few more - in the public space than is the case elsewhere. Certainly the UK seems to be regressing: Boris has been a huge disappointment and Sky TV is just as woke as the BBC. There is James Delingpole, I concede.
Well said. Yes, rest in peace
I was up until 2am last night, with isn't like me, and I think now it was because of this. Some things hit you hard even though "logically" it doesn't make sense that they do. I know I must have read some of his writings, but probably not for about five or ten years. And yet...
Some people will no doubt point to this as proof that I'm wrong about the corrosive effect that writing anonymously has on the discourse. "See, this guy used his real name and look what happened." My reply remains the same, echoed in Mark's "silent majority" (in intentional quotation marks) in the final paragraph:
If we ALL used our real names, the pressure on Mike Adams would have been lessened, and he might still be here.
I blogged pseudonymously for over a decade. (We even corresponded a bit, blogress to blogger.) It gave me the freedom to write what I felt like, but at the same time, if what I wrote wasn't over my own name, did it really represent my views? Or did anonymity give me false "courage"? Anyway, I'm happy to write under my own name here; if the mob comes for me (not that I flatter myself), they come for us all. And then my problems are the least of my problems. I didn't know Professor Adams or his writings, but I am sorry for his passing. People boast about comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. Except when they're the formerly comfortable currently afflicted. Then they scream like banshees.
I'm using my real name, but I don't think anyone is coming for me. Yet. I don't have a family to worry about. I definitely did not see what was coming. Mark opened my eyes somewhat. I first became acquainted with Mark in the Happy Warrior column, too.
Kathy, I agree with you and I was thinking about this a lot as well. He had been battling completely on his own for many years. This terrible tragedy is more proof (as if we needed proof) that ll the "don't use my name" e-mails are not worth a pot of piss. Sorry not sorry for being crude. Names are important. Twitter is a loaded gun for way too many people.
"Newspapers have turned into colleges. Boardrooms have turned into colleges. Graceless corporate pseudo-macho American sports have turned into colleges." Great way of putting it.
An insightful obit, Mark. The combination of Democrat stormtroopers in the streets, the advent of Democrat coveted mail-in ballot stuffing, and the craven Goebbelsesque media don't give one much hope. One thing is certain: Democrat hegemony at the central government would essentially destroy any vestige of a free America. As you so often observe many Americans may have become too ignorant for self-givernment.